The last five points

Kim: Point number six. Do you blend tightly with other singers and with yourself if you’re multi-tracking? This is in terms of the phrasing, the diction, the general tone quality that you’ve used. You have to match all that as well as the pitching and the timing.

Point number seven. Are you stylistically versatile? So I was talking before about being employable. If you specialise in just one style, you’d better hope there’s a LOT of work in that one style, because otherwise you’re just not going to get enough work to pay the bills. It’s actually beneficial that I’ve got quite a generic commercial sound (which is why I think I personally have gone the session singer path rather than the artist path). And that’s actually what you need as a session singer – not a really distinctive, signature ‘artist’ sound. The minute you’ve got that you’re too classifiable, you’re too obvious…

Jeremy: Too distinctive…

Kim: And that can become a problem. That person should be an artist. Whereas for me, my natural sound is quite generic and I’m also a bit chameleon-like so I’m naturally pre-disposed to these skills.

Point number eight. Do you have a reliable vocal technique that gives you a high level of control and consistency? Are you able to sing for hours on end (if need be) without losing your voice? For example, doing backing vocals on an album in one day, which I’ve had to do many times.

Point number nine. Do you have infinite amounts of patience?

Jeremy: Do you?

Kim: I don’t actually! I don’t suffer fools gladly. But I have infinite amounts of patience in certain circumstances, like in my job, where you just have to. For example, working with producers who aren’t singers and who don’t know exactly what they’re after, or give you very odd or vague instructions. Or with sessions that have run way over time. The singers have been booked at a certain time and the instrumentalists putting the track down (because the singers are always the last thing to go on of course) could be hours late and you’ve still got to go into that session with a good attitude. Even though you’re hungry, you’re tired, you’re irritable, your blood sugar’s low, you still have to walk in there and be absolutely vibey on every single take even though you may feel like strangling somebody at that point. And you may have PMT, etc etc. It doesn’t matter. No-one cares about any of those things. You are paid to deliver and deliver you will. Because if don’t deliver, it will potentially be your last session with that person. Not only could it be the last session with that particular producer, but with any other singers you’re singing with who then talk about you to other people. That’s it, that is the network – it can work for or against you.

Point number ten. Are you able to generate performance-level vibe in a completely dead room with no audience, take after take after take. Many singers find this difficult and need an audience to get them going.

Jeremy: I think that’s a really important one, because being in the recording studio is so different from anything else.

Kim: Completely. It’s very unnatural. It’s an incredibly unnatural environment.

Jeremy: Yet the output has to sound like it’s the best thing you ever want to do.

Kim: Otherwise it will not sell (if it’s advertising) or it won’t work (if it’s a song). Even if you sing it beautifully in tune, beautifully in time, you’ve got all the lyrics right, got all the little embellishments and things that you do down pat, if you don’t sound like you’re ‘present’, if you don’t sound like you’re into it, it will not work. The songwriter that you’re working for won’t be able to put their finger on it, but they’ll know something’s missing. If it’s an advertising jingle, and you might be singing about dog biscuits or tampons, or sexually transmitted diseases as I had to do recently…

Jeremy: What, where you can buy them?

Kim: No, it was a sexual health helpline jingle. Again, you have to sound very engaged and involved with it otherwise it’s not going to do the job it’s meant to do, the job you’re being paid to do. You have to somehow (and this is the acting side of it), you have to somehow find or access something inside you that you have to get into the vibe of whatever you’re being asked to do. Whether it’s a song or a film or a jingle or whatever. It doesn’t matter what you’re being asked to do, you have to find ‘that’ place. Otherwise it literally will not sell or will not work. And that’s not easy to do when it might be some dreadful piece of music you’re being asked to do. Nonetheless the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ pay the same amount of money.

Jingles

Jeremy: This whole area I’m really fascinated in because it’s something I know nothing about. The jingle.

Kim: Yes, well it’s my speciality. I’ve literally sung thousands, even before I’d left Australia, because I was one of the main jingle session singers in Australia. That’s actually how I got into session work. My very first session was either ‘87 or ‘88, and I can still remember it. It was a jingle for a bacon company in Australia [KR Darling Downs]. And that jingle for all I know is probably still on air. I took to it like a duck to water. I went “Ah! I really like this”. It was one of those epiphany moments. I thought “I really dig this”. It’s a very odd thing, session singing, which is what I try to explain to people. It’s not glamorous! I don’t know what people outside of it think it is, because I’ve been in it too long. I know what it is, so I find it really difficult to picture what other people think it is. What I try to tell other singers is that it’s a weird headspace that you’ve got to be in to love session singing. Because of the level of scrutiny involved, and the perfectionism involved, and the working conditions sometimes. So you really have to be wired that way for it to suit you. I’m glad for the future of the music industry that most people DON’T want to do it. That most people do want to make a creative, unique contribution to the world as artists and use us session singers to enhance that.

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Part of this interview originally appeared in the Vocal Process eZINE. Remember to register for the Vocal Process eZINE to stay up to date.